A Queer History of the United States for Young People

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against our common view of the Puritans’ society as religiously strict and harshly controlled. To understand why Thomas Morton founded Merrymount—and why it quickly came under attack and was disbanded—we need to understand a little about how people thought about sexuality, culture, and religion in sixteenth-century England under Queen Elizabeth I. This Elizabethan period was, despite what was taught in the churches of the time, quite open-minded. The popular plays of William Shakespeare were filled with suggestive sexual humor. A wide range of sexual behaviors was tolerated and even accepted. Christopher Marlowe, a noted playwright and poet, openly discussed his sexual activity with men and was widely quoted as saying, “All they that love not tobacco and boys were fools.” Although homosexual activity between men was illegal, these laws—which were also the laws of the colonies and later were adapted by the American states—were only selectively enforced. Gender roles were also fairly loose, and women were allowed more economic and social freedom than in the past. Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church because the pope would not grant him a divorce from his first wife. When this split occurred, Henry started the Church of England, making himself its head. This was also a time of great religious upheaval throughout Europe, with many Christians splitting from the Catholic Church and starting new Protestant denominations. This period, spanning the 1500s and early 1600s, is called the Protestant Reformation. Some in England felt that the tenets of Henry’s church were still too similar to those of Roman Catholicism. Like many Protestants, they longed for a more simple and direct relationship with God, one not controlled, or directed by church officials. Because they desired a more “pure” church, they were called Puritans. Puritans were very unhappy with the openness and sexual freedom of Elizabethan culture. They would not go to the theater, public fairs, or festivals nor go to taverns to drink. This put them in a minority in England, and their religious views were barely tolerated. So the Puritans, like the Quakers and other English Protestant sects, went to North America, where they could freely practice their religion.
The Pilgrims, who were members of a stricter form of puritanism, planned to live according to the most severe rules of Protestantism and to create what they saw as a truly righteous society here on earth. When they came to the Bay Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, the Pilgrims attempted to create their ideal society and passed many laws governing belief and everyday life. These included strict laws against any kind of differences in sexual or gender norms. Homosexual relationships were strictly forbidden. Cross-dressing or any behavior that didn’t fit society’s norm—including marriage to non-Puritan people or people of other races— was forbidden and could be punished. Thomas Morton, a trader and lawyer, sailed to Plymouth, from England in 1624, with his friend Captain Richard Wollaston. We don’t know why they picked that colony, but we do know that when they arrived, the two men quickly found that they could not get along with the Puritans. Morton, Wollaston, and other men with them had different views that were less strict. They quickly left Plymouth Colony and in 1625 founded Merrymount. After a short time, Morton and Wollaston had a falling out because Wollaston believed in slavery and Morton did not. Life at Merrymount was about as different from that of Plymouth as it could be. Morton and his friends freed their indentured servants (servants who had to pay off the price of their journey to America by working for a certain number of years) and treated them as equals. This was seen by the Puritans as foolish, possibly sinful. Morton and his friends also befriended the local Wampanoag tribe, whose culture they admired. The Merrymount residents urged intermarriage between native women and male colonists, something strictly forbidden not only by Puritans but by most Europeans. When, in 1627, the colonists erected the eighty-foot-tall maypole, here’s how Morton described his celebrations (his spelling is changed here to our modern usage): They brought the Maypole to the place appointed, with drums, guns, pistols and other fitting instruments, for that purpose; and there erected it with the help of Savages, that came thither . . . to see the manner of our Revels. A goodly pine tree of 80 foot long was reared up, with a pair of buckshorns nailed on, somewhat near unto the top of it: where it stood, as a fair sea mark. THE END OF MERRYMOUNT
Page 6 and 7: History is a novel whose author is
Page 8 and 9: CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER
Page 10 and 11: CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Young People To
Page 12: inside and many outside on the stre
Page 15 and 16: Front” to connect themselves, by
Page 17 and 18: history is literally present in all
Page 19 and 20: ■ INTRODUCTION ■ BEFORE WE STAR
Page 21 and 22: The organizers of the Gay Liberatio
Page 23 and 24: word”—that is, a word they coul
Page 25 and 26: Some people feel they were born in
Page 27 and 28: CHRISTINE JORGENSEN Publicity photo
Page 29 and 30: ■ SECTION I ■ AMERICA NEW BEGIN
Page 31 and 32: including sex between women and bet
Page 33 and 34: A sketch depicting a ceremonial dan
Page 35 and 36: EUROPEAN MISSIONARIES Europeans rep
Page 37: William Bradford, the governor of P
Page 41 and 42: ■ CHAPTER THREE ■ JEMIMA WILKIN
Page 43 and 44: Iroquois). Friend had no worries ab
Page 45 and 46: ■ CHAPTER FOUR ■ DEBORAH SAMPSO
Page 47 and 48: these men agreed that though they t
Page 49 and 50: not alone. When it came to gender a
Page 51 and 52: Two men enjoying each other’s com
Page 53 and 54: the first president of the United S
Page 55 and 56: George Washington after victory at
Page 57 and 58: are different from those of that ti
Page 59 and 60: they lived in a large family home
Page 61 and 62: Her sweet Weight on my Heart a Nigh
Page 63 and 64: ■ CHAPTER SEVEN ■ JULIA WARD HO
Page 65 and 66: Julia Ward Howe and her husband, Sa
Page 67 and 68: In her diary in 1842, just after sh
Page 69 and 70: ■ SECTION II ■ AMERICAN FREEDOM
Page 71 and 72: discovered that Cashier had been bo
Page 73 and 74: wishes and his privacy and did not
Page 75 and 76: CROSS-DRESSING IN THE CIVIL WAR The
Page 77 and 78: ■ CHAPTER NINE ■ CHARLOTTE CUSH
Page 79 and 80: Charlotte Cushman depicted in her R
Page 81 and 82: Sallie Mercer, Cushman’s lifelong
Page 83 and 84: After ten years together, Cushman a
Page 85 and 86: ■ CHAPTER TEN ■ WALT WHITMAN Po
Page 87 and 88: Walt Whitman, 1860s. Whitman’s vi
Page 89 and 90:
emotionally damaged. Separated from
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SEX BETWEEN MEN IN THE NAVY Few his
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Hartford—and took in boarders. Th
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do so. Did the two women marry beca
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Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington,
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■ SECTION III ■ NEW AMERICANS B
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intelligence, and some good connect
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“Get thee behind me, (Mrs.) Satan
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■ CHAPTER THIRTEEN ■ JANE ADDAM
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My Dear, It has occurred to me that
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fought against segregation in Chica
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LILLIAN WALD AND THE INVENTION OF P
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■ CHAPTER FOURTEEN ■ JULIAN ELT
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Eltinge out of costume, early 1910s
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agents released numerous stories ab
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■ CHAPTER FIFTEEN ■ MARIE EQUI
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An assistant to Dr. Marie Equi with
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arrested numerous times and became
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■ CHAPTER SIXTEEN ■ GLADYS BENT
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paid four hundred dollars, which wo
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“Nothing Now Perplexes Like the S
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HARLEM: A SYMBOL OF FREEDOM For abo
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Crowds outside the Lafayette Theatr
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■ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ■ WORLD WAR
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Highly trained African American wom
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overlooked the height and weight re
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lesbian in other parts of her life.
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evolutionary. So was the idea that,
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learned the concept of “homosexua
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involved in a wide range of politic
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■ CHAPTER NINETEEN ■ PHYLLIS LY
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fields, even in their trade journal
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In 1955 Lyon and Martin met with si
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■ SECTION V ■ REVOLUTIONARY CHA
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Eleanor Roosevelt delivered the let
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Pauli Murray as one of her “boy s
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argued and won, she took a job at a
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only fighting for legal reforms on
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expand a FOR program there, and on
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common interests, including folk mu
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■ CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ■ CARL WIT
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helping men to resist the draft. In
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take on organizing projects, includ
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feminism was put on notice that les
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sexuality in feminist discussions.
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land. Many other Chicano landowners
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which was closer to home. She worke
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and had a tremendous impact on the
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each, where she made friends. Comin
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■ CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ■ SYLVEST
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music that had been in the mainstre
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the national debate in states about
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By coincidence, as the first wave o
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jobs, evicted from their apartments
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■ CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX ■ ROBERT H
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meant that for the first time the g
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to ten years in prison. Charges wer
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■ CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN ■ ESSEX
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Essex Hemphill, 1991. What gave Ess
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were praised for their honesty and
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He did, however, keep on writing. H
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Winter at the Manzanar internment c
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ECHO marched in front of Independen
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Activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya. After a
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Soviet Union. Like many people, Gon
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to do with loss, most notably a bil
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■ CHAPTER THIRTY ■ JAMIE NABOZN
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was found unconscious on the floor
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Jamie Nabozny (right) and his famil
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spent his early years in a Catholic
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like all good political activists,
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MARRIAGE EQUALITY AND THE COURTS Th
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■ CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO ■ SYLVIA R
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young age Rivera was engaging in se
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Other people involved do not rememb
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—face enormous problems with home
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told the press. The story was in th
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national television—rumors of her
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ten LGBTQ youth feel they live in a
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involved in consensual, ethical, an
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He dated women and was even engaged
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■ CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ■ YOUNG P
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involvement with other political is
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LGBTQ people, including finding rea
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GLOSSARY ASEXUAL/ASEXUALITY “Asex
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FEMINISM Feminism is the belief in
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the poet Sappho, who lived on the G
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BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography list
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Chapter Five: Nineteenth-Century Ro
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Mary Gabriel, Notorious Victoria: T
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Patricia Bell-Scott, The Firebrand
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Chapter Thirty: Jamie Nabozny ACLU,
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PHOTO CREDITS PG. xiii Photo by Dia
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PG. 179 Photo by Diana Davies, Manu
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A. Philip Randolph Institute, 170 A
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Critical Path AIDS Project, 225 cro
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Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time,
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immigrants: blaming of for social p
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Marlowe, Christopher, 23 Marquette,
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opportunistic infections, 204. See
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37-38; tombstone, 36 San Francisco,
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typhus fever, 28 Uncle Tom’s Cabi
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BEACON PRESS Boston, Massachusetts
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A Queer History of the United States for Young People

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